DXB

Very nice!

Congrats! Hope it treats you well!

Regarding above, I have no real engine expertise, just a sordid history of obsessive Mike Busch webinar watching. So someone please correct me on my present understanding of the following points if necessary: - Corrosion related pits on cam lobes alone do not explain visible ferrous metal in the filter. - Extensive pitting can create uneven loads at the cam-lifter interface that slowly wear away the hard exterior of the cam lobe around the pits. This progresses to spalling of the softer metal inside the lobe, which is the visible ferrous metal in the filter. - The rough interface also spalls the softer metal of the lifters, which contributes visible metal to the filter. - On lycomings this is likely to happen on the cam lobes and lifters driving the intake valves because those lobes work twice as much- opening 2 valves per lobe. - As this cam lobe loses height from spalling, there is a gradual decrease in engine power from incomplete intake valve opening. - Though the spalling happens fast once it starts, it does not produce catastrophic engine failure. So unless someone chooses to ignore obvious, large amounts of ferrous metal in the filter and then also an anemic engine, the only danger from cam/lifter spalling is to one's pocketbook. Again note disclaimer, and folks with real expertise please correct me. And my sympathies to the poster. I'm certain the time for my O-360 will come one day too.

I do the same- view it as a convenience and safety feature to turn off the coding for ease of access. It's a flight planning and cockpit tool only so no need for security.

Well, this is a cool first flight, assuming that flying a whimsical piece of 1930's art deco design suits your fancy: http://www.popsci.com/watch-only-airplane-ettore-bugatti-ever-designed-fly Just overlook the runway excursion, nose-over, prop strike at the end. Apparently an unexpectedly long float and a brake failure contributed. Design is jaw dropping gorgeous but entirely untested - better to look good than feel safe...right?

For selling a plane, I certainly support employing a bikini'd female in stilettos for the photos. In this case however, she may have gotten distracted from her assigned task of polishing the plane. "Almost ready to paint" may be a more apt description of this bird.

Don't know if it's the closest, but I had a good prebuy experience with Cole Aviation in Dalton GA (240 miles south of Louisville)

It ain't over until the fat lady finds metal in the filter.

That's more jarring than the first 10amu repair bill. So much for a honeymoon period for this hapless new owner...

Will do this eventually when mine burns out. I've heard there's landing and taxi versions? Which one do folks get?

Congrats! I think my "initiation ritual" as a total newbie was pulling MAP back to 18" while holding altitude to get to Vlo and wondering what magical power was keeping the plane from slowing down.

Wow-I think Jose has the definitive linguistic analysis on this issue here. It will use it make me better at piloting Mooney aircraft(s).

In addition to detailed Lycoming recommendations cited above, latter portion of this webinar is a great guide on how to triage metal in the filter: http://www.eaavideo.org/video.aspx?v=2149054014001 Hopefully the conclusion that you need overhaul is premature? May be worth sending out to identify source of metal. Per Mike Busch the content of the filter on visual inspection is often misinterpreted.

If I'm not mistaken the mini 3 is the same as the mini 2 except addition of the fingerprint reader, which has no utility in the cockpit. Could save a couple bucks and just get the mini 2.

I've gotten pretty decent "practice" on bounced landings without trying to necessarily...

Wow talk about thread drift...but based on OP I certainly hope for a prompt and attentive response from the authorities on stuff like this. Regardless of race, it's likely some clueless RC pilot who needs an unpleasant, publicized law enforcement encounter to help get his hobby back on track. Of course the possibility that it's a "dark skinned" person with Mohammed Atta ideology or a "light skinned" person with Timothy McVeigh or James Holmes-type thinking does give the response extra urgency. On domestic soil, it's hard to say which of the two scenarios is more likely. Of course as a dark skinned person, I hope not to be viewed in the former light when stepping into a flight school

This is awful. I definitely feel less vulnerable when at my class D home field vs. the non-towered world, perhaps because it sure feels like they are providing separation services. They provide radar service and make spacing calls constantly at busy times. It wasn't until well into my PPL training at this field that I learned they were technically not required to do so. Operationally, talking to the tower feels minimally different from a class C, excepting no separate departure controller. This may give a false sense of security. How much variability do the experienced people on here find in talking to different class D towers and how do they behave differently in class D vs. class C airspace?

I agree it's unlikely to cause direct harm as long as you don't do invasive things to an engine because of an oil analysis alone. The only negative things it might cause are unnecessary worry, expense, hassle. Or perhaps an ill-advised complacency to ignore other signs of an issue if analysis comes out ok- but then that's a flaw in the person, not the product. Still I'd be curious to hear any examples from people on here who had serious issues that ultimately required action and were first picked on oil analysis. The key thing is that: (1) nothing else suspicious or concerning was going on at the time (2) the oil analysis led them to take a useful action that they wouldn't have had reason to otherwise (3) doing so clearly contributed to safety. If there was something else of concern at the time of the analysis, then it is being used as a diagnostic test. But If there's nothing wrong, then it's a screening test. I know from experience that it's generally much harder to make a good screening test than a good diagnostic test. So many screening tests for health that seem to make all the sense in the world have failed in real world use. Don't get me wrong- I'm hardly an expert on engines or oil. Perhaps for this very reason, I dutifully send my samples to Blackstone and feel mildly reassured by their congenial, descriptive blurbs at the top of the report. I'm just wondering aloud if it really meets objective muster as a screening test, i.e. usefulness in an engine with no other detectable problems or reasons for concern.

Chris- if you don't mind, PM who your instructor is. I'd like to get some more training this fall. My guy is great but I want other perspectives too.

Right after I got my PPL in a standard trainer, I did dual instruction in my newly purchased M20C with a Mooney Safety Foundation instructor and former M20C owner. I did the 10 hrs required by insurance - he wanted to sign me off before this, but I actually would have liked to go beyond the 10 hrs - maybe I'll find some more instruction soon.

Not sure - link works for me. Here's the screenshot:

I'm curious as well. There do appear to be reputable, experienced A&Ps who are anti-oil analysis, perhaps with good reasoning? I recall having a conversation with Joe Cole about this at my prebuy- he viewed oil analysis with disdain but generally sent it because of near-universal owner demand. He didn't say why, but for him I suspect it generates owner pressure to investigate small blips which are meaningless to the health of the engine most of the time. On the flip side, appropriately not recommending immediate action on an uninterpretable change that is later followed by a catastrophic failure may generate liability. Routine oil analysis is a screening test- conceptually close to health screening tests, which do have risks. Inadequately sensitive screening tests provide false peace of mind. Inadequately specific ones lead unnecessary interventions, which can be harmful. Classic example is the 15 years of routine PSA screening that happened for prostate cancer, which lacked specificity for the tiny subset of prostate cancers that actually mattered. As a result very very few men were actually helped. But there are now a whole lot of guys impotent, or worse, after prostate surgery for a tumor that would have never hurt them. In the meantime the makers of the test got rich. Primary care MDs universally screened - if you failed to screen and your patient got prostate cancer, you might get sued. And urologists and radiation oncologists made good money from treating the new deluge of prostate cancers that would have never otherwise been caught, so there was little incentive to think critically on the issue. Sorry for long digression. I've no idea if oil analysis leads to harm in the aviation world. My only point is that non-validated screening tests do certainly have the potential to cause harm; yet external pressures can still keep them in use for a long time.

My transition instructor, who is also an A&P, was a big fan of using this thing to draw through the dipstick: http://www.blackstone-labs.com/vacuum-pump.php He suggested using it at 25 hrs to check "condition of the oil" and decide whether to keep running it or change. Never made total sense to me, so thus far I've stuck to the "oil is cheaper than an engine" philosophy every 25-35 hrs.

I've garnered from Mike Busch's writings that the oil analysis is good at picking up wear metals from top end problems early. However, according to him, sometimes cam/lifter spalling issues will just show up suddenly as visible metal in the filter one day without any warning in the oil analysis. So I guess the two are complementary, but if I only did one, I'd stick to cutting the filter.

Just needs more "transition training." Not quite up to Caitlyn standards yet.